BBC Redesign Attempts To Make Website More “Swipable”

With the rise of new media platforms like tablets and smart phones, the ways in which we interact with content have shifted dramatically. In a nod to the ever-growing amount of readers using tablet and mobile devices to read the news, the BBC launched a beta site redesign today that accounts for “swipability,” the finger gesture most popular for navigation on smart phones and tablets. “The beta provides a first glimpse of core design principles that will underpin the reshaped BBC Online,” said the BBC in a press release today, “which take into account changing user behaviours including the preference for ‘swiping’ through content – increasingly intuitive given the rise of touch-screen smart phones and tablets.”

The new interface is clean, boxy and simple, hearkening back more to the look and feel of an app than a website. According to the press release, “The hallmark of the redesign is a highly-visual “carousel” which will enable users to browse the BBC’s breadth of content more easily.” As Paid Content points out, “The new homepage borrows much from both “apps” and the appified HTML5/Dynamic HTML paradigms. Though they can be pressed, none of these fixtures can actually be “swiped”, however, even on touchscreen devices.”

With mobile technologies on the rise, we’ll most likely see many news organizations overhauling their websites to make them more easily navigable on phones and tablets. This new BBC redesign will only impact the UK page for now, but may be rolled out internationally in the future.